Nellie Bly/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. A robot, Deep Throat, approaches another robot, Woodward, in an empty concrete underground parking garage. Deep Throat takes out a notepad and pencil and begins to take notes on their conversation. ROBOT DEEP THROAT: Beep. ROBOT WOODWARD: Beep. ROBOT DEEP THROAT: Beep. ROBOT WOODWARD: Beep. The screen changes to show a boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, sitting on a couch, watching the scene on their television. Tim whispers to Moby. TIM: Wait, is that the guy they were supposed to-- Moby puts his hand on Tim's mouth to silence him. MOBY: Beep! ANNOUNCER ON TV: All the President's Droids will continue after these messages. Moby takes his hand off of Tim's mouth. TIM: Phew, that was intense! Tim pulls out a letter from his back pocket and reads from it. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, we're learning about journalism in school and have to research a famous reporter. Nellie Bly seems pretty cool. Can you tell me more about her? Thanks, Emilia. TIM: You picked a great one, Emilia! An image shows a close-up of Nellie Bly with the caption: "Nellie Bly, 1864 to 1922." The screen changes to show a newspaper called "The World" spinning into view. The date is October 15, 1887, the headline is "Inside the Mad-House," the author is Nellie Bly, and there is a black-and-white photograph of a large brick building with spiked iron gates. The sign above the gates reads: "Blackwell's Asylum." TIM: Nellie Bly is as well-known for how she approached stories as for the stories themselves. She didn't just report on current events. Instead, she dove deep into subjects to dig up information that people were trying to hide. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Her most famous piece uncovered the terrible conditions at a psychiatric hospital for women. Back then, they were called madhouses or lunatic asylums, and they weren't very nice places. The image zooms into the black-and-white photo of the asylum, which turns to color. TIM: To get the inside scoop, Bly pretended to be mentally ill. She faked memory loss, and acted strangely. She was declared "positively demented" and sent to the facility at Blackwell's Island. The screen changes to show an animation of two guards in blue uniforms dragging Nellie Bly down the asylum hallway. One side of the hallway is lined with women in hospital gowns sitting on benches and on the floor. The women look malnourished and sad. The other side of the hallway is lined with closed doors with small windows. A sad-looking woman looks out of one of the windows. Metal doors shut behind Nellie. TIM: Her resulting article, "10 Days in a Mad House," was a huge hit. Readers were captivated by vivid details of freezing, filthy rooms, rotten food, and abusive staffers. An animation shows passengers in a train car reading copies of Nellie's story. The animation zooms in on a woman reading the story, as a thought bubble with images of the women in the asylum appears above her head. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, that's the kind of story that sold papers back then. The era's yellow journalism was all about drama and sensationalism. Writers used shocking details to pull readers in. An animation shows a young paperboy on a city street, holding up a newspaper with Nellie's story. A man takes the newspaper from the boy and throws him a coin. TIM: For a lot of them, it didn't matter if the story was newsworthy, or even true. But Bly stood out from her fellow reporters. She didn't make things up to grab people's attention. An animation shows rows of reporters, including Nellie Bly, in a newsroom, typing on typewriters as they sit at their desks. She stands up and walks out of the room. TIM: To get to the bottom of her stories, she put herself in the middle of the action. Even when it came to reporting on dangerous situations. She filed dispatches direct from the front lines during World War I, one of the only female reporters to do so. An animation shows soldiers in a trench during a battle. An explosion occurs nearby. Nellie Bly is interviewing a soldier and taking notes. MOBY: Beep? TIM:'Bly was just as daring during her time as a foreign correspondent in Mexico. She criticized the nation's dictator for jailing political opponents and reporters. ''An animation shows a hallway lined with prison cells. Nellie Bly is standing outside one of the cells and interviewing the prisoner inside. '''TIM: Eventually, she had to flee the country to avoid prison herself! MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, Bly was never one to shy away from taking risks. In one series of articles, she raced around the world to see how fast it could be done. This was more than a decade before the Wright Brothers, so you couldn't just hop on a plane. Bly traveled by boat, train, horse, and rickshaw, filing reports by telegraph as she went. An image shows the front page of "The World" newspaper. The headline reads: "Bly Embarks on World Trip," with a black-and-white photo of a large ship. The image of the newspaper changes to a map of the United States and the Atlantic Ocean, with the ship sailing away from the United States. A red line traces the ships route to Europe and beyond. A newspaper headline reads: "Bly in London," with an animation of a moving train. A headline reads: "Bly tours Mecca," with an animation of a horse-drawn carriage. A headline reads: "Bly in India," with an animation of a rickshaw. A headline reads: "Bly Crosses Asia," with an image of telegraph wires. TIM: It was a hugely popular series; the paper even created a board game based on her adventure! An image shows a board game called "Round the World with Nellie Bly." TIM:'After 72 days and nearly 25,000 miles, she arrived back in New York City. ''The animation of the red line tracing Nellie Bly's route appears again, crossing the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the United States, then crossing the country and ending back in New York City. A black-and-white image shows Nellie Bly getting off a train and waving to a crowd. A newspaper headline reads: "Welcome Home, Nellie." '''MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, it sounds kind of silly now, almost like a reality TV show. But this was 1889, when ladies were expected to have an escort just to go to the store. Taking a solo trip around the globe sent a message that women could accomplish anything. An animation shows three women sitting on a park bench reading the newspaper article about Nellie Bly's journey. TIM: Which was exactly Bly's intention. She'd always been frustrated by the limitations placed on women. As a little girl, she saw her mother struggle to keep food on the table after her father died. An animation shows Nellie Bly as a girl with her three brothers, sitting at a kitchen table with empty plates. Their mother serves a single chicken drumstick. TIM: When Nellie and her brothers reached their teens, they went to look for work. While her less-educated brothers easily scored high-paying factory jobs, Nellie was limited to what was considered "women's work." Being a tutor or a nanny offered little chance to earn a decent living. An animation shows the four siblings returning to the kitchen table. Nellie's brothers are wearing hats and overalls and holding tools. All three place stacks of money on the table. Nellie is dressed as a nanny, and empties a single coin from her purse. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Some of Bly's earliest articles focused on the struggles of working women: To find challenging jobs, receive fair treatment at work, and earn equal pay. An animation shows Nellie typing at her typewriter. The scene behind her changes to show what she is writing about: a maid holding a broom in an expensive home as a well-dressed man speaks to her sternly. TIM: Misogyny, prejudice against women, was a focus of many of her stories. Including her investigation of the mental hospital. Many of the inmates weren't even mentally ill. Immigrants were labeled insane just because they didn’t speak English. Husbands had their wives committed just to get rid of them. And some women were locked away simply for speaking their minds, or violating the unwritten rules that defined how women should act. Calling them insane was a quick and easy way to shut them up. An animation shows four women standing in line at the mental hospital. The scene changes from color to black and white. Striped shadows appear over the women, giving the appearance of jail bars. TIM: Bly went undercover in other difficult situations in order to break stories. She exposed employment agencies that took advantage of servants; black-market traders who bought and sold babies; and widespread harassment of young women by police officers. An animation shows Nellie Bly undercover: as a maid in a fancy home; as a mother pushing a baby stroller; as a jailed woman being intimidated by a police officer. TIM: Her stories regularly sparked public outcries that led to real change. Bly was pioneering a new type of writing: investigative journalism. MOBY: Beep? TIM: It's like a cross between reporting and detective work. Investigative reporters go to great lengths to unearth the truth. Some go undercover to get closer to their subjects, like Bly did. More often, it means spending months or even years researching a story. An animation shows a reporter at his desk, surrounded by stacks of paper. Behind him is a framed newspaper article with the headline: "Two Years in a Biker Gang," with a photo of the reporter disguised as a biker. TIM: Threats to public health are a common subject of investigative reports. Like when factories pollute rivers, or companies hide when their products are unsafe. An animation shows the reporter near a pipe outside a factory. He takes pictures of a green liquid pouring out of the pipe into a lake. TIM:'Uncovering that kind of truth can be dangerous. Those in power will often do anything to protect their interests. ''An armed guard on the roof of the factory spots the reporter and talks into his walkie-talkie. '''TIM: Political corruption is another big focus. Like in the Watergate scandal. That's when President Nixon ran a spying operation against his political rivals. Nixon eventually had to leave office because two journalists refused to give up their search for the truth! An image shows a newspaper called "The Daily," dated August 9, 1974, with a headline that reads: "Nixon Resigns." TIM: In some parts of the world, they would have been imprisoned before they got very far. Our Constitution has specific language to prevent that from happening here. An image shows a parchment scroll with the words of the First Amendment of the Constitution. TIM: The First Amendment says that the government can't make any laws limiting freedom of the press. It's no mistake that that same amendment protects our speech. When a reporter asks a politician a tough question, or writes about a corporation breaking the law, they're speaking out for all of us! An image shows a newspaper. Another image shows a loudspeaker. TIM: That's why brave people like Nellie Bly are so important. They are our watchdogs, our whistleblowers, our guardians of the— Tim is standing on a soapbox. Moby has placed a Statue of Liberty crown on Tim's head, and an American flag and sparkler in his hands. TIM: Hm, point taken. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts